


Oasis And Mirage

by jessebee



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, BUT see the end notes if you don't like angst, But then when is he not?, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Obi-Wan is a bit sassy, Playful Loving Sex, Qui-Gon Lives, Qui-Gon is no slouch in that department, Reunion Sex, because I said so, please, this is your warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-28 22:27:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15059159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/pseuds/jessebee
Summary: The Clone Wars have begun.  Qui-Gon has been away a long time.  Obi-Wan has missed him.





	Oasis And Mirage

 

 

He was not lingering about the landing pads, of course he wasn't, but he managed to be there, close by, just the same, when Qui-Gon's shuttle was scheduled to arrive. And if he happened to be sitting on a particular bench not far from the entrance to the Temple's interior? Well, he _was_ working, after all; the reports he had could be written anywhere. And it _was_ a nice bench.

The sounds of the directional thrusters had stopped, leaving the hiss of pneumatics and cooling steams and the muted _tok_ of bootheels, coming closer, coming closer, becoming _thup_ as their wearer came off the stone and duracrete of the landing pad and into the softer Temple hallway –

“Loitering in the halls again, my old Padawan?”

Obi-Wan Kenobi looked up, fixing a mildly indignant expression on his face. “I beg your pardon, my old Master, but I never 'loitered' in the halls. 'Lingered with intent,' perhaps, but never loitered.”

Qui-Gon Jinn stopped next to Obi-Wan's bench and looked down at him, wearing a hard-used cloak and odd bits of plastoid imitation _beskar'gam_ armor that his squad had no doubt insisted upon, and the half-smile that had featured in some of Obi-Wan's very best dreams. “And are you 'lingering' now?” he asked, his voice warm but hoarser than it should be. “And for what intent?”

“I've been asked to perform escort duty,” Obi-Wan said, storing his pads away in their shoulder carry-case and reaching for the Force to help push him to his feet. Only years of training kept his mouth from twitching; the joy – and relief – he knew he was radiating into the Force, he didn't even try to stop. “I’m meeting a Master who's been away longer than he should – something about a short fact-finding mission turning into a year-long absence, complete with battles, refugees, and a kidnapping, even – and making sure that he does in fact get to his quarters and do one or two sensible things, such as, oh, sleeping? Eating?”

Both of Qui-Gon’s eyebrows, nearly as gray now as his hair, rose in surprise. “I’m not to see the Council first?”

“On the thoroughness of your commed report, they decided to give you a day’s reprieve,” Obi-Wan replied, dryly. “In favor of the aforementioned eating and sleeping.”

Qui-Gon looked down his nobly-broken nose at him. “I have been sleeping, thank you,” he said, gripping Obi-Wan's arm to steady him. Or simply because he could.

Either way, Obi-Wan's skin tingled with the touch, so very-much missed; an electric charge right through three layers of cloth. “More than two hours at a time?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

Qui-Gon eyed him. “ _Someone_ has been talking out of turn,” he rumbled, his expression promising retribution for whichever of his officers it had been, and Obi-Wan spared a moment to hope that the redoubtable Cody had covered his tracks.

That his own former commander had wound up with Qui-Gon's troops after Obi-Wan had been invalided out had been a blessing direct from the Force. Cody’s transmissions, both on-record and off, had been most of Obi-Wan’s few sources of comfort, and for those five hellish months Qui-Gon had been missing, the only things to give him any hope.

“ _Someone_ has been concerned for your health, since you apparently are not,” Obi-Wan returned, allowing a touch of asperity into his tone. He took up his long walking staff from where he'd leaned it against the wall behind the bench, and turned toward the Temple's interior.

“The needs of that population came first,” Qui-Gon said dismissively, walking next to him, the older man's long stride checked back to match Obi-Wan's. “For me, the Force – ”

“The Force,” Obi-Wan broke in, just loud enough to override him, “is many infinite things but it is _not_ slumber, nor is it nourishment. I seem to recall a Master telling me that, once or twice.”

“Do you? And you believe me, now, in need of that lesson?”

His own reactions to the man notwithstanding, Obi-Wan was years past pulling his punches, especially where Qui-Gon’s wellbeing was concerned. “Yes.” Bluntly.

A pause, then Qui-Gon's soft rumble of laughter. “I have _missed_ you, Obi-Wan. The infrequent commcall in no way does you justice.”

 _Particularly when you disappear for five months_ , Obi-Wan thought. “I’ve missed you too, Qui-Gon,” was what he said though, softly and pitched for them alone. “More than you know.”

The Temple was not a noisy place as such, but the often soaring architecture sometimes threw sound in unpredictable ways. Qui-Gon looked over at him and gave him a slight nod; that and the warmth emanating from him through the Force gave Obi-Wan more hope that he'd not in fact battered their relationship beyond repair, all those long months ago. Unlike his damned leg.

The halls were long but doable in terms of his leg and hip; still, it was a small relief to reach the bank of lifts that would take them up to Qui-Gon's quarters. There was, miraculously, no one else in the lift-pod with them, and Obi-Wan wasn't about to squander the opportunity, as he had so many others. He had no time to waste, now. Never-mind the fanged things gnawing at his stomach. “I'm sorry, Qui-Gon.”

Qui-Gon blinked, before his face smoothed out into comprehension. “Obi-Wan – ”

“No, let me say this. The way I – the way things were when you left, I – ”

“Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon took the single step forward to close the space between them and cupped Obi-Wan's face in both hands. “It's all right.”

“Is it?” The words slipped out despite himself. Obi-Wan winced.

Qui-Gon only bent, long hair falling forward, and kissed him on the mouth.

For one long, shocked moment, relief and joy warred with surprise and jammed Obi-Wan’s gears.

Only a moment.

His staff clattered to the floor as Obi-Wan wrapped both hands around Qui-Gon’s wrists to hold him close and pushed back, deepening the kiss. He touched his tongue against Qui-Gon’s lips and moaned softly when they opened immediately, welcoming him in.

Force, the _taste_ of him. Like the air Obi-Wan needed to breathe, spiced with sweat and Qui-Gon’s skin. Like water to a desert wanderer, the oasis within reach at last, at last.

Too soon, Qui-Gon drew back. Well, they were in a karking _public Temple lift,_ after all, Obi-Wan thought, and throttled the sudden urge to laugh. He felt … Not light, but less heavy: the weight that had been pressing on his heart was beginning to ease, and his stomach to uncramp.

“You must know,” Qui-Gon murmured, one thumb caressing Obi-Wan’s cheekbone, “that the words we said then had nothing – I didn’t – ” A sigh. “I didn’t _choose_ to get kidnapped, truly.”

“I know.” Obi-Wan nodded, shallowly so as not to dislodge those big hands; Cody had said as much.  Because Force knew Master Jinn _was_ _fully_ _capable_ of getting himself kidnapped if the mission demanded it. Qui-Gon’s very lifeblood pulsed against Obi-Wan’s thumbs, pressed lightly over the veins. His former master was both the last being he should ever admit this to and, paradoxically, the only one to whom he probably ever could. “I knew that, I did. I do. I feel it. And yet, still …”

Qui-Gon’s expression turned rueful. “And yet. I do know. I’m not immune to doubt, either; dear one; I’ve just many more years practice of hiding and releasing it. And this, between us, is – new, to me.”

 _Oh, Qui._ Obi-Wan leaned up and kissed Qui-Gon again, then released him and stepped back as the lift slowed. “To me as well.” He called his staff back to his hand as the lift stopped entirely, sliding his fingers through the holding loop in the motion that had become, sadly, second-nature.

It was too much to ask that they’d make Qui-Gon’s quarters without having to stop and speak with at least one other Jedi glad to see Master Jinn returned and in one piece. And by one, of course, the Force provided several. By the time the door closed behind them, Obi-Wan had an old familiar ache in his hip and a new one in his stomach, and the second one wasn't entirely his. So.

First things first. “Qui-Gon.”

The older man paused, having just dropped his travel pack by the door with an ill-concealed sigh of relief, and turned back around.

Obi-Wan dropped both his staff and his carry-all this time, trusting that the bag’s padding would do the job it had been designed for, took hold of Qui-Gon’s elbows and swung him around and into the wall just to the left of the door.

“Obi-Wan?”

Startled but not upset. Good. “Hush,” Obi-Wan told him, and stopped the other man's mouth with his own.

Qui-Gon responded immediately, and the nascent heat between them fired. They kissed for long minutes, trading moisture and breath and murmurs and increasingly urgent caresses. _I missed you_ , the thought raced through Obi-Wan’s mind unbidden. _I missed you I missed I_ _**love** _ _don’t go again don’t go where I_ _**can’t follow** _ _you don’t stay away so long –_

But those weren’t words he could say, even now – that any Jedi could say, and he did not.

He spoke how he could, instead, leaning into Qui-Gon's body, licking into his mouth and fumbling one-handed with the catch to Qui-Gon's belt. There were mutters against his mouth. Obi-Wan ignored them in favor of more tongue and a mental crow of triumph as the belt catch gave, and then _squeaked_ as arms tightened around his waist and his feet left the floor. “Master?!”

“We are not,” Qui-Gon growled, “doing this here.”

“Qui-Gon, what – _Qui_ -Gon!” Obi-Wan yelped as he was hauled over Qui-Gon's shoulder in a rescue carry.

“I have spent these last long, long months sleeping in spare rooms and run-down warehouses and on the cold, bare ground,” Qui-Gon growled again, moving. Obi-Wan craned his neck and realized where they were heading. “On starship bunks so utterly ridiculous that the floors next to them were the height of luxury. I am _**not** _ making love to you for the first time in a year on the _Sith-damned common room floor._ I have a bed – ”

The door to Qui-Gon's sleeping room smacked open.

“ – a large, wonderful bed, an _excellent_ bed – ”

Obi-Wan began to laugh.

“ – where I can spread you out and touch every micron of you – ”

His world flipped and Obi-Wan's back hit the mattress and rumpled sheets and he bounced, still laughing, ignoring the momentary flare of pain.

“ – and go to sleep after with you in – why are – Obi-Wan!”

Obi-Wan opened his eyes.

Qui-Gon had him caged in Jedi Master, arms to either side of Obi-Wan's shoulders, one tabard slipping down a shoulder, his hair tossed and his color high. The Light of the Force was so bright around him that a being could probably read by it. He was the most completely beautiful thing, at that moment, that Obi-Wan had ever seen.

“Something amuses you, Padawan?”

Obi-Wan smiled, wide and open, and reached up to extricate the leather tie from Qui-Gon's hair. “We do, Master mine,” he said huskily. The tie gave up to determined fingers, and long, graying bronze hair sheeted down to curtain them both. Obi-Wan dug his fingers happily into the silky mass of it. “We do.”

Qui-Gon stared down at him for a few moments before a corner of his mouth twitched upward. “Well, so long as you're entertained.”

“Oh, I am, I am,” Obi murmured, freeing a hand to run a gentle finger over the edge of Qui-Gon's mustache. “But perhaps I could interest you in a different kind of entertainment?”

The short hairs beneath his fingertip shifted, a tickling brush. “I thought you'd never ask,” Qui-Gon said simply. And there was something else under the words, something in the Force, something – nervous, something – that Obi-Wan didn't want to look at right now.

“You’re familiar with the excellence of my bed already, aren’t you?” Qui-Gon asked, smoothing one hand over the crinkled bedclothes as if he’d just noticed their condition.

“Yes.” Obi-Wan nodded; this bed was the only place he’d gotten any semblance of peaceful sleep. But he wasn’t going to talk about that. “Come here,” he whispered instead, heat flaring into the sound, and pulled gently at the hair he was holding, urging Qui-Gon's mouth down to his.

He had to let go again for the necessary awkwardness of clothing removal, but that was balanced by the delight of being the one to remove it, piece by piece, from Qui-Gon's body. Sitting on the side of the bed, Qui-Gon standing between his knees, Obi-Wan untucked the end of the sash and let it unwind and fall, pushed away the long tabards, pulled loose the ties of outer and inner tunics. It was only a short lean forward and Obi-Wan kissed the skin at Qui-Gon's waist, touched over body hair and muscle and warmth, ignoring for the moment the hard ridge just south of his chin, the defined bulge in Qui-Gon's trousers.

He ran his hands slowly upward, parting the tunics' fabric, noting the red lines of scratches and new scars and the yellow-green of old bruises, and the roughly circular patch of tissue just below Qui-Gon's breastbone, still shiny more than a decade later, that marked where his master's life had very nearly ended, cored through by the blood-red blade of the Sith.

Obi-Wan pressed a harder kiss to that scar, that precious bit of flesh; felt it rise as Qui-Gon took a breath. He leaned away a little and let his hands slip back down, over the barely-there indent of Qui-Gon's waist and the points of his hipbones, to find the trouser fasteners. A few quick motions and they parted, and Obi-Wan hooked his fingers beneath the layers of cloth and pulled downward, carefully.

Qui-Gon's cock sprang free, hard and ready, and a drop of moisture emerged to sparkle at the tip even as Obi-Wan watched. The so-familiar scent of him, of Qui-Gon, wafted up and Obi-Wan inhaled deeply. Oh, delicious: Qui-Gon, but _more_.

Obi-Wan's mouth watered. He leaned closer, lips parting, he _had_ to have a taste –

“Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon said thickly.

Obi-Wan looked up, but not before he'd ringed thumb and middle finger gently around the base, hair crinkly against his skin.

“If you do – that, this will all be over embarrassingly fast.” Qui-Gon's expression balanced precariously between chagrin and stark, naked desire, and something flipped in Obi-Wan's stomach. To be wanted so much –

Obi-Wan throttled his own need for the moment and instead just pulled his hand upward in a slow caress, feeling heat and durasteel hardness beneath soft, soft skin, and marveled at the way Qui-Gon bit his lip. He stared up into deep blue eyes that seemed lit from within, and held out his hand. “Touch me.”

Qui-Gon pulled him to his feet and kissed him lingeringly, then began to take his clothes off, much more quickly and more efficiently than Obi-Wan had done but not without caresses following over newly-revealed skin. It wasn't until Qui-Gon urged him down on the bed and rid him of his boots, before stepping back and ridding himself of boots and trousers, that it occurred to Obi-Wan, through the thickening haze of his own arousal, to ask: why the haste? Overwhelming passion? Or concern for his leg?

Then Qui-Gon was there, naked and glorious and with Obi-Wan in the sheets, all that skin sliding electrifyingly across Obi-Wan's and his mouth on Obi-Wan's throat, and the deeper “why” just didn't matter anymore.

Obi-Wan groaned and arched, digging his fingers back into Qui-Gon’s hair. Qui-Gon kissed and licked at him, tongue tracing the edge of Obi-Wan's beard and down, nibbling at the point of his throat and sending shivers racing under his skin. His hip ached but he pushed the pain away, burying it beneath the pleasure.

Qui-Gon slipped down his body, and Obi-Wan arched again as Qui-Gon sucked hard at one nipple, fingers worrying and pinching the other one. A little too hard and Obi-Wan caught his breath; Qui-Gon caught that and eased the pressure until – “yes, like that,” Obi-Wan whispered, and squirmed with delight. Still so new to each other, they were: a brief moment, before Obi-Wan's injury and Qui-Gon's last mission, was all they'd had. Qui-Gon knew his body from twelve years of care and apprenticeship but not in this way, not as a lover.

Oh, and he could be perfectly happy with this, Qui-Gon's weight pinning him down and Qui-Gon's mouth feeding on him, the tickle of beard and the desire in the Force, the dark-sweet scent of Qui-Gon's skin –

No, he was lying – he couldn't be. Every pull sent tingles racing over Obi-Wan's skin on a straight line down to his cock, building the ache. He needed more, something, more, that mouth, those hands –

With a last hard pull and a startling sting of teeth, Qui-Gon moved, sliding down, mouth following the trail of hair leading down Obi-Wan's torso. The brush of skin along Obi-Wan's cock was exquisite torture, Qui-Gon enough to the side not to catch him on the way down and kriff but Obi-Wan _wanted_ to be caught.

He raised his head as best he could and watched, enthralled, as Qui-Gon kissed lower, over the twitching plane of Obi-Wan's stomach, big hands sliding over Obi-Wan's lower body, down his thighs and back again, until they cradled Obi-Wan's left hip and the root of his penis.

The air caught in Obi-Wan's throat as Qui-Gon looked at him, examined him, with the most extraordinary expression on his face. He was so close that his simple exhaled breath made Obi-Wan shudder and twitch.

Well, and Qui-Gon could hardly miss _that_ , now could he? “Obi-Wan?”

“Please,” Obi-Wan whispered. “If you want to.”

“I don't know – much, of this; how to please you,” Qui-Gon murmured, his voice rough, and little gods, Obi-Wan could _feel_ the tension in the Force, how hard that had been to say.

“ _You_ please me,” Obi-Wan got out, and were they really having this conversation with Obi-Wan's cock three inches from the man's mouth and literally weeping for want of him? “It's _you;_ that's all that matters.”

Qui-Gon stared at him and slowly started to smile: a full smile that crinkled the skin around his eyes and turned hot and mischievous as Obi-Wan watched, the tension dissolving beneath surety and lust and love, open and unshielded. Which only ratcheted Obi-Wan's own arousal higher.

“Well then,” Qui-Gon said, voice dropping very low, “in that case – ”

“Qui-Gon – ”

The three inches had shrunk to one as Qui-Gon paused, eyeing him now like a lothcat about to spring.

Obi-Wan swallowed. “What you said, earlier, about things being over too fast?”

Qui-Gon's smile this time was a kind of wicked Obi-Wan had rarely been fortunate enough to be the target of, and never from his _Master – !_ “Well then, we'll just have to try again, won't we?” Qui-Gon rumbled, and closed his mouth over Obi-Wan’s cock.

Obi-Wan threw his head back and _keened_ , a sound he hadn’t known he could make, digging his fingers into the sheets to keep them from knotting in Qui-Gon’s hair. Fire flashed from his groin outward to his very fingertips, leaving sweat and quivering nerves all over his body. He couldn’t look.

He had to look. It was Qui-Gon.

Qui-Gon’s long hair draped over Obi-Wan’s belly. Qui-Gon’s big hand wrapped around the base of Obi-Wan’s cock. Qui-Gon’s mouth stretched around him, shockingly lewd, moving, moving, heat and wet and tight ah _gods_ sucking heat, tighter tighter Qui-Gon Master oh _Force,_ love, my love, Qui-Gon “Qui-Gon I’m – _**Qui**_ – !”

Qui-Gon pulled off with an obscene popping sound and tightened his hand, pumping hard and fast and looking up into Obi-Wan’s eyes. “Come, love.”

Climax hit like a photon bomb, exploding everything into blinding razor-spikes of light, shock-wave pulsing out into the Force. Obi-Wan convulsed, muscles pulling taut, curling him forward and shaking him with pleasure, hard and magnificent, before dropping him back onto the bed in a boneless sprawl, aftershocks rolling through and stealing what was left of his sanity.

The mattress shifted under him and Qui-Gon was on top of him, glorious sweaty skin, hard body against Obi-Wan’s and moving, thrusting, Qui-Gon’s erection sliding against Obi-Wan’s upper thigh, hot and hard and frantic, hot breath against Obi-Wan’s jaw and Obi-Wan got his hands up, fingers along Qui-Gon’s ribs, too thin, he needed to eat –

Qui-Gon froze, his face contorting in beautiful agony; jerking and freezing again as wet-hot-slick spread against Obi-Wan’s thigh and crotch. His face dropped into Obi-Wan’s neck and he groaned, low and long and hoarse; and if Obi-Wan hadn’t come himself less than a minute before, that, and the concussion of Qui-Gon’s pleasure shuddering through the Force, would have done the trick.

Qui-Gon collapsed in slow motion, hips flattening, then waist, then the rest of the lean body in a undulation like the sea, lying between Obi-Wan’s legs and over him like a heavy, living blanket made of all the most precious of things. Obi-Wan kissed the graying head tucked beneath his chin and held the man. Just held him, for as long as he could.

Because eventually the demands of Obi-Wan's damaged body would win out, now and in the future, however long that would be. Lust and endorphins helped, as did releasing the pain to the Force, but only for so long. His pieced-together hip and thigh were giving warning signals: they would only take a splayed out position like the one Obi-Wan was lying in for so long, and the pressure of Qui-Gon’s body wasn’t helping in the least.

The man in his arms sighed then, and moved a bit, and the warning signals became sudden claxons. Obi-Wan stifled the gasp and wriggled as best he could, shifting; there. Better.

“Obi?”

Dammit. Obi-Wan squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t move. I’m fine.”

He did move, of course, damn the man. “I'm hurting you,” Qui-Gon said, raising his head to look Obi-Wan in the eyes and shifting his weight so that he was straddling Obi-Wan's good leg.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “I just needed to shift a little. I'm _fine_.”

“I'm too heavy for – ”

“Qui, don't. Please don't do that. Trust me to know my own body.”

Qui-Gon's mouth thinned at that, but he didn't say anything, and and that was how Obi-Wan knew, finally and for certain, that no-one had yet told him: that the Council had, in fact, left it up to Obi-Wan.

He wasn't sure if he should thank them or damn them.

Obi-Wan sighed. “It happened. The Healers don't know a way to undo the poison damage from the ship's drive. They're working on it, but there may not be a way to stop it, and I've had the last year to come to terms with that. I'll not be back in the field, but I'm far from useless. It hurts, true, but that's part of my life now. I accept what I cannot change and work with it, not against it.”

“Don't try and tell me that it's a good hurt.”

Obi-Wan's mouth quirked. “I won't, then. But it tells me you're _here_. And this hurts far less than its absence did.” He swallowed. “Far, far less than the memory of the last words I said to you.”

“Obi-Wan. You were in pain, badly wounded. You'd been trapped in that fighter for two days, being poisoned by the drive parts embedded in your thigh, and you'd just been told that you'd very well lose your leg if the remaining poisons didn't kill you,” Qui-Gon said, compassion and pain in his eyes and in the Force. “Jedi serenity, yes, but we're mortal, too. I, on the other hand, have no excuse for how I spoke to you. To bring up my own injury in that fashion … ” Qui-Gon shook his head. “I have no words, other than – I'm sorry.”

But all the universe was in those words, and something in Obi-Wan's chest ached and cracked, the emotional pain he hadn't been able to give to the Force finally starting to drain out. Finally. He so hadn't wanted to take that with him.

Obi-Wan raised a hand and ran his fingers gently over the high curve of Qui-Gon's cheekbone, watching them tremble, and swallowed again when Qui-Gon caught them against his face and turned questioning eyes to him. “You're forgiven,” Obi-Wan whispered. “Am I?”

Qui-Gon leaned in and kissed him, a promise and a vow. “Always. What's wrong?”

Obi-Wan closed his eyes.

“Obi-Wan?”

He breathed and sought his center, and the Force, and Qui-Gon's love against his mind, and wrapped their peace around himself before he opened his eyes again. “They can't stop the damage, Qui-Gon,” he said, as gently as he could.

“Can't – ” Deep blue eyes narrowed dangerously. “Stop _what_ damage? The poisons?”

It had been half a year now, why was it still so hard to say?

“Stop _what_ _damage_ , Obi-Wan?”

As evenly as he could: “The cancers.”

Qui-Gon stopped breathing.

“They began to appear roughly six months ago.” Five months and twenty-three days, but who was counting?

“And Che didn't _remove them?”_ Qui-Gon demanded, incredulous.

“Of course she did, but they're – persistent, shall we say?” Obi-Wan tried a smile, but suspected it wasn't too successful. “There always seem to be more. A bit like battle droids, in that – ”

“ _Obi-Wan._ ”

The look on Qui-Gon's face – Obi-Wan bit his lip. “I'm sorry.”

“Sorry.” Mouth open, Qui-Gon looked like he was struggling for words and air both, his aura prickling with pain and confusion, and Obi-Wan's heart ached for him. “Tell me,” Qui-Gon ground out eventually. “Everything.”

Obi-Wan did, and somewhere during the telling Qui-Gon lowered his face to Obi-Wan's shoulder and didn't move. “Vokara's best theory,” Obi-Wan said finally, “is that the energy from the drive awoke, or perhaps fed, something left behind in my wounds from Naboo and Geonosis. There are – stories of corruption to the flesh, caused by the energy of a Sith blade. But it's been a millennium since anyone has played test subject for that kind of research – before this war, of course – ” fighting to keep his words light around the knot in his throat, “ – so her information isn't exactly – up to date … ”

A low, indistinct sound from the man in his arms, but Obi-Wan couldn’t pick out words. “Qui-Gon?”

“Should – have been me.”

 _ **Never**_. It screamed through Obi-Wan’s mind and he gave up, biting his lip, letting the knot rise to choke off all the other words that wanted to spill out.

“How long?”

Only that, but Obi-Wan knew what he was asking. “Perhaps … a year.”

A shudder ran Qui-Gon from head to toe, and another one, and Obi-Wan held him tighter. “And I,” Qui-Gon choked out, sounding like he was crawling over shattered glass, “was gone – when – you found out. Six months – that we might have had – ”

_Together._

The agony in the Force, in Qui-Gon's voice, cut Obi-Wan to his soul. He squeezed his eyes shut, hard. It didn't help at all against the tears.

“The past is beyond our reach, love,” he whispered, and turned his mouth into Qui-Gon's hair. “But you're here now.”

 

*

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*

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> **Terminal Illness**
> 
> Welp, the informal tumblr results said ANGST, so here we are. Another one for both my Kiss Meme Stories and the QuiObi Week 2018. The request was from a nonny mouse, "Kiss #18, QuiObi (hopefully AOTC era) <3" #18 being "Kisses because I missed you and you really shouldn’t stay away so long." Well, nonny, this is actually during the Clone Wars but I hope you will forgive me.
> 
> Enormous hugs and smishes to sanerontheinside and meggory84 and culturevulture73. You folks ROCK, and this tale would be so much less without you all.


End file.
